It’s in our own backyard
“We are going to cut these soldiers into pieces one by one, and we will send these pieces to their commanders,” a Taliban spokesman said about the 17 Pakistani troops who were kidnapped in a brazen terrorist raid on a military outpost in Tank last weekend. One soldier was killed in the raid. Nine paramilitary troops were killed and 19 injured in an attack on a garrison in Bannu the next day.
But a country that is furious over American raids on a tribal region it admits it cannot control does not react the same way to attacks by the Taliban. While the US has denied the Pakistan army’s allegation that the NATO attack on a Pakistani checkpost on the Afghan border last month was deliberate, the Taliban routinely release videos in which they behead and cut Pakistani troops into pieces.
Their spokesman said Friday’s attack was to avenge the killing of Taj Gul Mehsud, an operational commander who had orchestrated several attacks on Pakistani soldiers. He was killed in a US drone attack in October. But Pakistan opposes drone attacks.
If we must end ties with the US after the November 26 attack that it regrets, should we not also end ties with the Taliban who have killed more soldiers and policemen since then, and want to cut many more into pieces? Taliban killed three soldiers in an IED blast in Kurram Agency on December 17, another two soldiers in clashes in Orakzai and Khyber agencies on December 16, four children and two adult civilians during a search operation in Khyber Agency and one policeman in Peshawar’s Badhabir area on December 13, three policemen and a pedestrian in a gunfight after they abducted two policemen in Hangu on December 12, three Rangers troops in a bombing in Karachi on December 9; two soldiers in a battle in Kurram on December 6, and one soldier in Orakzai on November 27.
Also since November 26, Taliban have blown up two primary schools for girls in Charsadda, one girls’ school in Tank, another one in Jamrud (three children were injured), and one boys school in Landi Kotal. Ten Shia men have been killed in what appear to be sectarian attacks in December this year.
The wife of a Taliban leader in Karachi arrested after a gunfight earlier this month confessed to being involved in at least nine terrorist activities planned by her husband, including the embarrassing attack on the Mehran navy base in Karachi that was popularly blamed on the US. Qari Shahid belonged neither to India nor to the US. He had been a journalist, a member of the Karachi Press Club, and an operative of our very own Jamaat-e-Islami for eight years. If we want to find our enemy, these are good clues to where we should start looking.
But at a time when the Pakistani military establishment thinks the country’s security is at stake, the best allies it could find were 30 religious outfits calling for Jihad in a public gathering in Lahore last week, former friends now grouping together in Imran Khan’s party, and Hafiz Gul Bahadur who announced earlier this month he will set up checkpoints on roads to ensure private trucks are not violating the army’s embargo on supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan. They all find common enemies in the US, India and Pakistan’s elected president.
Imran Khan says terrorism in Pakistan is a result of a flawed foreign policy in the last 10 years based on an alliance with the US. There have been two ministers for foreign affairs in the last 10 years. Both of them are in Imran Khan’s party, and sat on either side of the newly popular leader at his recent public meeting. While Pakistan’s major TV channels aired that tragic joke for several hours on December 25, there were no reports of another public rally in Swat the next day.
When militants took over Swat to slaughter its men and flog its women, when the government was forced to persist with a failed truce, and when fears of the militancy spilling over to the rest of the country resulted in a military operation, the lives of members of the Awami National Party were on the line. Although they have been accused of being complicit in the establishment’s policies, they were part of the only successful military operation against terrorists so far, and have lost key leaders and workers in this war.
Monday’s public meeting in Mingora’s Grassy Ground – where Sufi Muhammad had started his rebellion with a speech made to gun-wielding Taliban – was symbolic of decisive victory against the Taliban. And that is perhaps why it was not aired on TV.
The writer is a media and culture critic and works at The Friday Times. He tweets @paagalinsaan and gets email at harris@nyu.edu